The battlefield was silent.
The last echoes of clashing steel and shattering spells hung in the air like dying embers, fading into nothing as every eye turned toward Kael. The ground itself trembled beneath his feet, cracks spreading like veins of fire through the stone as an aura of impossible power surged outward. It wasn't just energy—it was the weight of creation and destruction woven together, a force that bent the very laws of existence.
Kael's body burned with a dark brilliance. Shadows licked at his frame like hungry flames, but they were laced with threads of blinding light. His eyes—once human, once mortal—now shimmered with a dual glow: one gold, one crimson, like the eyes of a god staring into eternity and the devil peering into damnation.
The army of the Order—their armored champions, their sorcerers, their holy priests—all froze where they stood. Swords slipped from hands. Incantations died on tongues. Even the bravest of them staggered back as if their souls had been laid bare to something they were never meant to witness.
"Wh-what… what is he?" a knight whispered, his voice breaking.
"He is no man," a priest muttered, clutching his staff so tightly the wood cracked. "He is… judgment itself."
But Kael's allies felt no safer.
The female lead—Elara—stood among the rubble, her hands trembling as she stared at him. She could feel the pulse of his power even across the battlefield, a storm so absolute it made her lungs burn with every breath. And yet, beneath that impossible aura, she could still see him—the boy she had once fought beside, laughed beside. But the boy was shrouded now, his smile drowned in a shadow so deep it threatened to consume the world.
"Kael…" her voice was soft, breaking.
He did not answer.
Instead, Kael raised his hand.
The air rippled, the sky split. With a motion so simple, so casual, he reached into the fabric of reality and tore it open. Space shattered like glass, fragments of a thousand mirrored worlds spilling into the battlefield. For a heartbeat, everyone saw themselves reflected—every fear, every failure, every sin laid bare. Some collapsed to their knees, screaming. Others clawed at their eyes, unable to endure the visions.
This was his new power. The Mirror of Eternity.
It did not strike with blades or fire. It did not scorch flesh or rend steel. It struck the soul itself, forcing mortals to confront the truth of what they were.
One enemy commander, armored in gold and bearing the sigil of the Order's highest rank, roared in defiance. "Tricks! Nothing but illusions!" He charged, his blade burning with holy fire.
Kael did not move.
The commander's sword swung down, and in that instant, he saw himself. Not the hero he believed, not the savior draped in glory—but a coward who had betrayed friends for promotion, a liar who had whispered false prophecies, a man who wore righteousness like a mask to hide the rot beneath.
He screamed. His knees buckled. His sword clattered to the ground. And then… he disintegrated. Not in flame, not in shadow, but in the raw unraveling of his soul.
The battlefield was silent again.
Elara clutched her chest. No… this isn't Kael. This is something else. Something devouring him.
But even as she thought it, she took a step forward.
Meanwhile, Kael's two closest friends—Darian and Lyra—stood together, their bodies battered from the earlier battles. They too felt the crushing weight of his aura, the temptation to sink into despair. But unlike the Order's soldiers, they forced themselves to rise.
"Darian," Lyra whispered, her voice hoarse, "if we don't reach him now, we'll lose him. Not to them… but to himself."
Darian clenched his fists, summoning the remnants of his fire-born power. His flames sputtered in Kael's storm, but he refused to let them die. "Then we burn everything we have. Even if it's only a spark in his night, we burn!"
The two of them surged forward, unleashing everything—Darian's firestorm colliding with Lyra's symphony of sound. Their powers harmonized, creating a shockwave that didn't aim to harm Kael but to reach him, to remind him of who fought by his side.
For a moment, Kael's dual-colored gaze flickered. His lips parted. He almost—almost—looked human again.
But then the whispers began.
From the shadows behind him, from the light above him, from the void between. Voices that were not his, yet came from within.
You are not their ally.
You are not their equal.
You are beyond them.
Kael staggered, clutching his head. Power roared from his body, splitting the earth. The battlefield cracked into canyons, rivers of molten fire bursting upward. Lightning storms ripped the sky apart.
And yet… he did not fall.
Instead, he raised his head. His voice was calm, but it carried like thunder across the world.
"I am not your god. I am not your devil. I am both."
The words silenced even the whispers.
The Order's armies broke. Panic spread like wildfire, men and women fleeing in every direction, their faith shattered, their courage burned away.
But his allies—Elara, Darian, Lyra—did not flee. They stood before him, trembling, tears burning their eyes, but they did not run.
Elara stepped closer. Her voice shook, but it cut through the storm.
"You are Kael. No power—no darkness—can erase that. You are not alone."
For a moment, the storm stilled. The shadows wavered. His golden eye softened.
And then, deep in the void of his crimson gaze, something else stirred.
A seal. Ancient. Hidden. Waiting.
The Mirror of Eternity was not his only gift. There was something greater, something that whispered promises of infinite dominion. Power enough to not only destroy armies, but to unmake reality itself.
Kael felt it pulse, like a second heart beating within him.
And though he did not unleash it yet, everyone on the battlefield felt its presence. The terror of what he could become. The awe of what he already was.
God. Devil. Both.
The world would never be the same again.